1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the field of communication. More specifically, the invention relates to communication networks.
2. Background of the Invention
Traffic mirroring is the duplication of data traffic and forwarding of the duplicate data traffic to a specified host. The duplicate traffic is forwarded to the specified host for any of a number of purposes including analysis of traffic, analysis of network equipment, lawful interception, etc.
One method of traffic mirroring is signal duplication. With signal duplication, a network element must include special hardware to duplicate a signal at the physical layer. The duplicate signal is directed to a predefined port of the network element.
Unfortunately, signal duplication requires special hardware to duplicate signals. In addition, a single signal can carry multiple streams of traffic. Although only a single stream of traffic may be of interest, resources are consumed duplicating the entire signal and forwarding the entire signal.
Another method of traffic mirroring is stream duplication. With stream duplication, a single stream of traffic is duplicated and the duplicate stream is directed to a predefined port.
Stream duplication enables a stream from a signal to be duplicated, thus reducing resources expended on streams of no interest. The stream duplication still wastes resources duplicating packets that may be of no interest and forwarding duplicate packets that may be of no interest.
Both signal duplication and stream duplication waste resources on packets that may be of no interest and waste the port that is dedicated to forwarding duplicate traffic. Furthermore, collection and analysis of duplicate traffic cannot be spread throughout a network.